Washington, USA - The US government came under pressure in Congress to impose sanctions on China for its successive seven-year inclusion in a Washington blacklist of "severe" religious freedom violators.
Chris Smith, a senior House of Representatives lawmaker from President George W. Bush's Republican party, said the time had come for the State Department to act on China for being on the department's blacklist since 1999.
"Are you contemplating a penalty phase for China and if not, why not? This is the most opportune time and we need to step up to the plate," Smith told Stephen Liston, the department's director of international religious freedom, at a Congressional hearing.
Smith lamented that "things are getting worse" in China and cited the prolonged "disappearance" of a Roman Catholic Church bishop and alleged persecution of other underground Christian leaders as well as minority Muslim Uighurs, Tibetans and members of the Falungong sect.
Liston agreed that China's religious freedom record was "extremely poor" and indicated that Washington might consider new approaches to prod Beijing to tackle the problem.
Asked to explain the new steps, he said, "I think there are many different ways we can do it -- both diplomaticaly and looking at the law."
"The fact is that for many people, conditions have gotten worse and we need to reassess and look at news ways to address this issue ... with the Chinese that will hopefully get their attention and lead to more change," Liston said.
In prison, the Chinese government abused members of unregistered religious groups such as the South China Church for refusing to recant their beliefs, he said.
"There were also credible reports of deaths in prisons and labor camps due to torture and abuse," Liston said.
China has since 1999 been included by the US Secretary of State in the list of "countries of particular concern" -- nations which have "engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom."
Smith said that US law prescribed various sanctions on countries such as China for alleged abuse of religious freedom rights.
He called for a "rethink" in the American partnership with China and highlighted the snowballing US trade deficit with the Asian giant.
Both President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had directly raised religious freedom issues with their Chinese counterparts.
Joseph Kung, who heads Cardinal Kung Foundation, a US-based human rights group, told the hearing that Bishop Su Zhimin of the underground Roman Catholic Church in China had "disappeared" following his arrest nine years ago.
"We desperately need to know if Bishop Su is dead or alive. I have heard that if Bishop were still alive, he would not be in good health because of multiple ailments," he said.
"All of the underground bishops in China are still either arrested and now in jail, or under house arrest, or under strict surveillance, or in hiding, or on the run, or simply missing," he said. "My educated guess is that there are hundreds in jail."
Felice Gaer, head of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, urged Washington to engage in a systematic and high level human rights dialogue with China to address its "deteriorating religious freedom conditions."
The State Department's Liston also urged Vietnam, which was recently removed from the government blacklist, to immediately rescind remaining religious curbs.
"The remaining problems in Vietnam merit immediate attention, and there is still a great deal of work for the government of Vietnam to do to achieve full religious freedom," he said.
Just before Bush visited Hanoi last month for an Asia-Pacific summit, the State Department dropped Vietnam from the blacklist.
Liston said registration of congregations had not reached a majority of believers in North and Northwest Highlands of Vietnam while some Buddhists and Montagnards in the Central Highlands faced harassment.